Made of Darkness

by Erica M Kim

  I bring my arms back again, and again, until I lose count and Vincent’s chest starts to bleed. Despite what is starting to look like a nasty wound, Vincent is still thoroughly enjoying himself. This is starting to get, quite frankly, boring. With the last and final blow, I feel a breeze of dizziness fly through my body. What was going on? Why do I feel dizzy? It must be the alcohol, and I push the thought aside.

  In a haze, the predator in me is dissatisfied about having Vincent tied up like a sacrificial lamb. I want more. I need more. “This is getting a little dull. I want to untie you and have my way properly.” Drunk on my own bloodlust, I greedily want to finish him off in hand to hand combat, not have my prey waiting for its death in a trap. I unbuckle his straps but keep the mouth gag on him. I push him onto the ground, on his knees like an animal, and he doesn’t resist.

  The sound of the whip cracks again as I bring it down on his back. Again. And again. Vincent never even winces. In fact, it seems as if he is on the verge of release, the bulge in his black underwear as evidence. I straddle his back and loop the whip around his neck to choke him. Another wave of dizziness overtakes me, and I actually sway a bit. What the fuck is going on? I steady myself by holding onto Vincent’s back. Without another second’s delay, I tighten the whip around Vincent’s neck, but before I could get a good grip, Vincent suddenly whirls around, and I come crashing onto my side. Now the real fun begins.

  “I don’t think so, my dear. You’re not going to make me unconscious without allowing me to get a piece of the action,” he says with a grin after he removes the mouth gag. I climb back onto him, straddling his hips as Vincent tries to steal the whip out of my hand.

  Before he could make another move, I hammer a fist down on his face, followed quickly by another fist. I raise my right fist again to unleash a third assault when Vincent somehow blocks me. He didn’t even seem surprised or concerned at all. This must be how he plays all the time.

  I get up and stand over him in one quick motion and grab the blade that is hidden inside my right boot. I lunge for Vincent before he has a chance to stand and give him a long cut on his upper thigh before he gets out of the way. Despite his bleeding leg, he is able to get up, but he’s slow to rise. I can’t tell if he thinks we’re still playing a game, or if he’s realized my intentions. His face is still greedy, lustful, and amused.

  I lunge again, and twist around him quickly, making a cut across his lower back. Before Vincent gets a chance to turn around, I dig my fingers into the cut and tug at the seam. Vincent finally screams. Alas!

  Before he realizes it, I am in front of him, making another cut across Vincent’s midsection. By now, he is tumbling down, heavily breathing, barely moving. I pounce down on his body and dig my fingers into the cut in his stomach, with the aim of pulling out whatever I can grab. Before I do so, I lick my left fingers, which are covered in his blood and smile.

  “You fucking bitch!” Vincent yells out. So now he gets it. I’m here to fucking kill you.

  Before I can continue, I hear several heavy footsteps in the hall. The door to the dungeon unlocks, and five men trample in holding an assortment of different guns, led by Carlos. They seem momentarily stunned as they take in the bloody scene. I take this opportunity to fly behind the bed where I left my handbag, which hides my favorite revolver of all time.

  I prefer tearing my victims apart, but with five armed men to one lady—if I may call myself that—I will need some help. As I hold my gun, ready to pounce, I can’t help but notice the dizziness that has finally taken its place, not in waves, but as a steady flow of weakness. Vincent must have slipped something into my drink. That fucking bastard.

  Without hesitation, I roll out from behind the protection of the bed. The moment I set eyes on my target, mid-roll, I point my revolver and hit the targets squarely without wasting a bullet. Chest. Head. Chest. Chest. Neck.

  “That was fun,” I say, getting up from the killing-spree somersault. I step out of line as I struggle to regain balance. Vincent eyes me as if he doesn’t know what to expect next. That’s right, bitch.

  Several footsteps are coming up the stairwell and heading in our direction, and Vincent’s face breaks into a smile. I guess backup’s here.

  The entryway is filling up with more men. The revolver is already empty, and I can see that a handful of the men are holding firearms. To my benefit, the other half only carry their fists and a couple of knives. Some guards these men are. Before anyone can even blink, I jump back behind the bed and search through my purse for the extra round of ammunition. I quickly reload the gun under three seconds flat, thanks to the hours of practice I had given this task.

  There are seven men with guns and only five bullets in my chamber. Behind the seven men, there is another swarm of seven men, waiting for their turn. The tension in the air is thick. The metallic smell of Vincent’s blood fills the air, and he lays motionless on the floor. He isn’t dead though, he grips his midsection tightly, trying to stanch the bleeding.

  I stand up without a sound, and before any of the men could react, I fire three shots, boom, boom, boom, with precision. I hit three of the men closest to the door straight to the head. I duck down quickly as the men begin to fire off their rounds. The bullets chip off the posts around the bed frame, and I smell burning wood. Bullets whiz by above my head, looking for a target that has disappeared. I would have to make my next move carefully.

  As I lay there, my dizziness reaches a new level, and my vision begins to blur in and out. Whatever Vincent has done to me is working, and I don’t have much time. I peek around the corner quickly and hide again before the blasts of gunfire start. The next time I take a peek, I throw one of my knives into the fourth gunman’s chest. I don’t give them any time to react as I rise again to throw the other knife into the fifth gunman’s chest. I miss his heart, but he still goes down. It’s getting harder to focus with the world blurring in and out. The remaining men proceed to uselessly waste rounds of ammunition into the bed and around the bed until I hear a click, signaling that one of them has run out of ammo. Perfect.

  With my last two bullets and a butterfly knife tucked into my boot, I swing up over the bed, until I am nearly face to face with the hoard of guards that still crowd the entrance. I empty my cartridge into two more brains and swing the backend of the pistol around smashing into the face of someone nearby.

  The men begin to swarm me, and I lose count. I reach for the knife hidden in my boot and brandish it in front of me with a smile. I even throw in a trick as I open the knife. Come get it, boys.

  A high kick takes down the first man, and while he momentarily sways, I slash his chest with my knife. Another brave but foolish man steps up, with fists up to guard him. Fists won’t be enough in this fight, baby. He takes a jab at me, nearly connecting. He is quicker than I expected. Or I am slowing down. As a matter of fact, the more I try to focus, the more I realize that it is absolutely impossible. Fucking A. I embrace the blurry vision and go with it, instead, relying on my ears to anticipate my opponent’s next moves. Before he gathers himself from his missed jab, I spin around and stab his back. And then another guard comes. And another. But no one is grabbing a gun from any of the dead men to shoot me. It dawns on me that they are on orders not to kill me. But why?

  Soon, it all becomes a blur, and all I can see is movement and blood. Movement and blood. More movement and more blood. The tang of iron is everywhere, on me and around me, but it only fuels the beast in me. Without fail, I kick, headbutt, stab, slice, jab, until I can barely see.

  My breathing is now heavy and labored. I feel a hand grab my shoulder and spin me around.

  “Hola, Lunis!” A familiar voice says from a distance, oddly bright in this gruesome scenario. Ramon? Before I can put two and two together, I feel the first fist connect to my face. I don’t feel pain, but my head knocks back, and I see spots. I’m confused beyond measure. How is Ramon here? I blink my eyes several times to wipe away the bright spots, all to no avail. I hear the
air moving on my left side and duck before a second blow takes the place of where my face used to be.

  I sway as I attempt to come up, and then someone lunges at me and takes me down on the ground. I hear Vincent’s voice in the background yell, “Fucking finally!” I strike out uselessly, kicking with all my might into nothing but air. Another foot connects with my ribs. And another foot digs into my stomach, and all of the oxygen in my body flees. I try to cover my head with my arms, but they feel like they weigh a hundred pounds. In fact, I can barely move at all. I feel blow after blow, kick after kick until everything goes black. This did not go as planned.

  45

  The gray sky of the approaching dawn peeps through the slits in the blinds when my eyes open. The first thing I notice is that I am upright, and my back is pressed against a hard, uneven surface. Both of my arms are strapped down, and my legs are also immobilized. Then it dawns on me. I am stuck in the medieval torture contraption, and the full moon is nearly gone.

  My eyelids fly open as I survey the still-swaying room around me. Vincent is sitting in a chair in front of me, a few feet away. He is heavily bandaged, but otherwise seems like he is just fine. He must have been waiting for me to awake for at least a couple of hours. Next to him, there’s a mound of cocaine, like a scene straight out of Scarface. I suddenly remember hearing Ramon’s voice, but I’m not sure if I dreamt it or if I was truly betrayed.

  “Did you poison me because you knew, or did you poison me out of pleasure?” I croak.

  “Does it matter? You did a fair amount of damage anyway. You killed twenty-four of my men. Twenty-fucking-four.” Vincent spits blood out on the floor.

  “It’s unfortunate that you’re not one of them.”

  “You are a fool, an inexperienced fool, to think that someone of my power would not have every single moment watched. My guards have been watching a surveillance camera of this room since the moment we walked in. They were waiting for me to give the cue.”

  “It must be hard to tell with all the fucked-up shit you like to do to yourself. Do you have a safety word?” I snarl at him. I still don’t see any visible surveillance around the room, but of course, a pervert like Vincent would not only love to hold orgies but would also force his men to watch it all unfold in another room.

  “It’s not that hard to tell the difference, you cunt. You think you are the first person ever to try this? I have to admit, you got the closest. You should have never underestimated me.” He was right. I got greedy in taking my delicious time to rip him apart when I could have killed him easily. I let my bloodlust get the best of me.

  Vincent signals to his men with a whistle, and a foot soldier obediently runs to the bar and brings back a manila envelope. I recognize it immediately. It’s Markus’s file. How the fuck does he have it? My groggy mind is moving at snail speed despite my rising panic.

  “Lunis, my dear.” Vincent’s voice takes a false charming tone. “I’ve been watching you since the moment we met. You were just too different to be one of those women at Crux. If you were at Crux for the same reason as the other women, you would have ended up here the same night.”

  Vincent continues while holding the file. “I looked you up, and your record is squeaky clean. So, I tracked down your workplace, naturally. We made sure to visit when you weren’t there.” I immediately think back to last Saturday when I went to Palm Springs, and Ramon seemed strange on the phone and in person.

  “After a few threats toward his family, Ramon eventually agreed to tell me everything he knew about you. And when I offered to take care of his dying sister, to get her the best medical treatment in LA, he agreed to spy on you,” he says with a self-satisfied smile. I shake my head, remembering just a few days ago, Ramon saw me put a file away in the safe. He must have known something important was in there and told Vincent about it. The cold, cruel knife of betrayal slices deep in my chest, and I close my eyes.

  “Then I found this,” Vincent says as he waves the file around. “You can’t understand how satisfied I was. A beautiful woman, out to kill me. Just like the movies.” He lets out a hearty laugh. “Perhaps you should try to be more human sometimes; it might help you make some real friends. Instead, since you are a cold-hearted bitch, Ramon had no problem selling you out. I feel sorry for you.” The knife cuts even deeper with these words.

  Faced with only silence from me, Vincent continues with his monologue.

  “Who sent you? La Familia? The Zetas? The Russians?” Vincent continues, “Let me guess who hired you. Markus Sirelle? You seem to be just his type of woman. What a damn idiot. Thinking some woman can take down the great Vincent Moreno.” An arrogant smile takes over his bruised and swollen face as he sinks lower into the leather chair, tossing the file aside. He leans over to take another huge line of cocaine.

  “I couldn’t just let my guards kill you though, even though that’s what Carlos wanted to do. No. I wanted to see how you would try to seduce me. I wanted to play a game with you. And it’s been such fun.” Vincent let me tie him up, despite knowing I was here to kill him. What a sick fuck.

  “There are so many things I want to do with you; I don’t know where to start. It was a big risk letting you tie me up like that, I know, but I had to know what it would feel like to be tamed by a monster of such incredible beauty and power like you.” Monster. That is truly what I am. Even a sick, evil son of a bitch like Vincent can see it.

  He rises from his seat, using a wooden cane with a silver-tipped handle to hobble his way to me. His obsession with inflicting pain on me still overrules his need to rest, and I rack my mind for a way out. My body is still weakened by the drug, and as I struggle to release my arms, dizziness seizes me, and I feel my head spin. The full moon must be waning, and my strength is diminishing with every minute that passes. Hopelessness starts to settle into the pit of my stomach. So this is it. I am going die at the hands of some ruthless pervert having his way with me before killing me. I indeed am a fool to take him on alone. Lio was right.

  Once Vincent reaches me, which feels like an eternity, he uses one arm to stabilize himself against the cane and uses the other to caress my skin. He breathes in the scent of my hair.

  “All that fighting and killing, and you barely broke a sweat. You are a fine and powerful weapon. If only I could tame you . . .” Before I could react, he raises his cane and brings it down across my mid-section. I hold back a whimper in the back of my throat. I definitely feel it with my fading powers.

  “Hurts, doesn’t it?” Pure evil and lust distort his face as he slaps me across the face with an open hand. The world spins, and my ears ring momentarily. My neck feels like it’s been whipped around completely.

  Vincent orders one of his guards on standby to bring a knife to him. He unsheathes it and cuts the strategically placed vinyl that holds my breasts in. They pop out as if they are gasping for air. Vincent’s hungry hands grope them as if they had been waiting for this moment all night. Before moving away, he takes the knife and slices each of my raised arms. The wounds aren’t deep enough to kill, but blood oozes out and starts dripping down my arms and onto my shoulders.

  “Bring me the chest,” he barks another order. Two guards scamper to the corner and bring him the enormous box. They open it for Vincent, revealing all of the tools that will bring his fetish dreams to life.

  After a few moments of rummaging through the contents, Vincent grips what looks like a flat, velvet-covered box. He opens the top, unveiling a tool kit that holds a variety of hooks, needles, claws, and other sharp objects that I can’t identify but look painful, nonetheless.

  Out of panic and desperation, I turn toward the door on my right to see if any of Vincent’s guards feel pity for me, searching even for Ramon. Unfortunately, what I find on their faces are malice and lust. Most of the eyes are glued to my bared breasts. Ramon is at the end of the line. He doesn’t look at me at all but stares out the window with a blank face. Fucking traitor. If I ever get out of this, I’ll hunt him down.
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  Vincent meticulously inspects each tool, like a child at a candy store, and extracts one of the needles from his kit. He holds it gingerly between his fingertips as his other hand grips my left breast like an iron fist.

  Before I could fully process what is about to happen, I see the needle, which had just moments ago been between Vincent’s fingertips, lodged through my left nipple. An icy rage, courses through my blood. I can take the beating, the cutting, or even the groping. But being used as a pincushion pushes me over the limit.

  I use all my might to try to release my right arm from the leather straps to no avail. My flailing body causes Vincent to fall backward, and three of his men step forward to hold me down. Two other men gingerly help Vincent rise as he inspects his bandages.

  “For that, you’ll be pierced ten more times. Fucking bitch.” Vincent’s men hold me down as he mercilessly lodges ten more needles throughout my body, including my legs, arms, and my right nipple. This time I don’t flinch at all. From the corner of my eye, I see my reflection in one of the hanging mirrors in the room and look away from the pitiful tied-up creature.

  I silently wish he would get this show over with and end all of the dramatics. I’m not sure how much longer Vincent plans to keep the act going, but soon, the sun would overtake the moon completely in the sky, and the remaining power that my body possesses will be sapped away completely, leaving me with nothing but painful cuts and bruises. I take in a deep breath as I survey the scene.

  Vincent digs through the torture chest slowly, looking for the next instrument he could use on me. The guards still hold my arms and legs down, waiting for any spontaneous movement. There is no getting out of this.

  Frustrated by his indecisiveness, Vincent orders one of the guards to wield the whip on me. The guard on my right steps up to the plate, and Vincent hands him a five-foot whip that ends in a leather tassel. Vincent slumps in his chair, deep bags under his eyes, and lights up a cigarette as if he’s waiting for the next theatre act to start.